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Okay, today’s topic is…

“How to set achievable language goals and resolutions. Your New Year’s Resolution Solution.”

So, for those of you have that set a language goal for 2019, what is it? Leave a comment and tell me. And for those of you that laugh at New Year's Resolution because they just don’t work, this is for you.

Stick around. Today, you’re going to learn:

1) The top 3 reasons why language goals fail

And 2) what YOU can do to succeed with your resolution. In other words, how to set successful language goals.

Let’s jump into today’s topic:

How to set achievable language goals and resolutions.

And speaking of New year’s resolutions, it's almost like a joke nowadays, isn’t it? You set a resolution. You try to do it in January. By February, there’s no progress and doing it isn’t fun anymore, you quit and put it off until many years later, when you start regretting all the things you’ve never done. So what’s the problem with setting resolutions and why do we keep failing?

Let’s jump into part 1. The top 3 reasons why language goals fail

First of all, regardless of what most people say, setting resolutions or goals, is a GOOD thing. You have to know where you’re going and what you want to achieve, right? Otherwise, you’d spend days, months, years watching YouTube, and have nothing to show for all the time you put in.

But the problem with most resolutions is, it’s usually something like “I want to master Chinese” “I want to lose weight” “I want to be fluent in Japanese”. People set very, big vague, goals.

And that’s the first reason why resolutions fail. Resolutions fail because they are nonspecific and unmeasurable.

What do I mean by that? Take a goal like...“I want to be fluent in English, Korean or Japanese this year.” The problem is, that’s a very vague goal, right? What do you mean by “fluent”? And can you measure how much progress you need to “be fluent” in the language? You can't. It doesn’t tell you anything about how much Japanese you should learn today, tomorrow, how many minutes of Japanese to speak by month 1, by month 2, what resources to use, and when to stop and take a rest. So, again, the first reason is: Resolutions fail because they are nonspecific and unmeasurable.

The second reason is: New Year’s Resolutions fail because they are unrealistic.

And you might say “but isn’t it good to aim for the stars and set huge goals.” Sure, it’s not bad to want to go far, but if you say “I want to be fluent by September” and you just started learning a language today? It’s NOT impossible, but are you ready to commit yourself to nothing but language-learning? 6 to 8 hours a day, non-stop? If not, you need to be a little more realistic about your goals.

The third reason is: resolutions fail because there is no action plan. The problem is... you will still fail even with a specific and realistic goal if you don’t know when and how you’re going to do it. For example: When will you study? How long will you study for every day? And how will you study?

So, resolutions fail for 3 reasons:

One: they’re nonspecific and unmeasurable.

Two: they’re unrealistic.

And Three: there is no action plan.

Now, how do you set New Year's Resolutions and actually succeed?

Your goals should be 1) specific and measurable, 2) realistic and 3) have an action plan. So, the complete opposite of the mistakes most learners usually make.

And there are 2 more rules. 4) You need to set a deadline. And 5), break down your yearly goal into smaller monthly goals. So, how would this work?

Let’s say my New Year's Resolution is to have a 30 minute conversation in Japanese by December 31st, and a not a “I want to learn Japanese one day.. Hopefully… “, Take a look. Already, you can see that it’s 1) specific and measurable. You can measure 30 minutes, right? 2) it’s realistic. I’m aiming for 30 minutes, not fluency. There’s a clear deadline: December 31st. Before we get into the action plan, there’s another important part: I break my resolution down into smaller, monthly goals. So, let’s say my goal is to speak 2 minutes of Japanese conversation by January 31st, 2019. Again, it’s small and measurable Just 2 minutes. I can time myself and see how far along I am.There’s a clear deadline. It’s realistic. I’m not looking to master the whole language.. just reach the 2 minute conversation mark.

Now, what about your action plan? For that, you just need to answer these questions.

When will you study?

How long will you study every day?

Where do you plan to study?

How will you study?

What is your study schedule?

This is the most important part because this tells you when and how to study. So…

When will you study? - I’ll study at 9PM on weekdays. So, 5 days a week.

How long will you study every day? - I’ll study for 15 minutes.

Where do you plan to study? - I’ll study at home, in the living room, on my computer.

How will you study? - I‘ll listen to 1 or 2 JapanesePod101.com lessons a day, to fill up the 15 minutes.

What is your study schedule? Monday through Friday for 15 minutes a day.

This makes a lot more sense now, doesn’t it?

Instead of saying “hopefully, I’ll learn Japanese or some other language some day”... and never take action on your goals, by setting these small, measurable goals, you know what you need to do.

Ok, let’ recap. To set successful language goals, Your goals should be 1) specific and measurable, 2) realistic, 3) have an action plan, 4) a deadline and 5) be broken down into small, monthly goals.

So, instead of saying “I want to be fluent in 2019,” try “I want to speak 20 minutes of conversation by December 31st, 2019.” And then go even smaller, and set a small, monthly goal.

So, guys, it’s your turn. Leave a comment and tell me what’s your small, measurable monthly goal and what's the deadline? Here are some examples you can steal for yourself:

With this video master course, they’ll be as sharp as a razor. Download it right now.

Next, The Talk About Your Body PDF Cheat Sheet

With this cheat sheet, you’ll learn words for parts of your body in your target language.

Then, there’s the “Most Common Texting Slang” word list. If you want to text in the language you’re learning, you’ll love this. You learn how to say “lol” and other words in your target language. And finally, the “How to Express Quantity” vocab list, where you learn … how to say if there’s a lot, few, a little bit of something.

To get these free lessons and resources,

Just click the link in the description below.

So, thank you for watching this episode of Monthly Review

Next time, we’ll talk about:

The 7 Tested Timeless Ways to Learn a Language

In the meantime, submit your recording, if you’re brave.

Like and share this video, and leave a comment to tell us what language learning tactics you’d like us to talk about.

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